Severe malaria in a Nigerian neonate and treatment with intravenous artesunate

Severe malaria in neonates is a rare occurrence because of the protective effect of fetal haemoglobin and passively acquired maternal antibodies. Despite this protection, severe malaria can still occur and may be confused with neonatal sepsis due to an overlap of clinical manifestations. Therefore, febrile neonates in malaria endemic region should be routinely screened for malaria because any delay in making a diagnosis and instituting adequate and effective treatment can lead to the death of the neonate. This is the first clinical report and successful use of parenteral artesunate for treatment of severe malaria in a Nigerian neonate that is documented in literature to the best of our knowledge

Event characteristics and socio-demographic features of rape victims presenting for post exposure prophylasix at the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri Nigeria

Objectives: On account of increasing awareness of the need for Post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and availability of requisite drugs, victims of rape are now presenting at health facilities including ours to access PEP for HIV. This study set to document the socio-demographic features of these victims and the event characteristic of the rape act.Methods: The medical records of patients who presented between January 2009 and December 2013 to the Paediatric infectious diseases clinic of Federal medical Owerri for PEP were reviewed.Results: One hundred and fifty three patients presented over reviewed period. 148(96.7%) presented for PEP on account of rape. They consisted of 147 females and 1male.61 (41.2%) of victims previously knew and could identify their assailants while 19(12.8%) of the victims had been previously raped. 32 (21.6%) victims presented on the day of the rape and weapons were used in 27% of the cases to ensure the victims cooperation. The most common place for the rape act was the assailant's home.None of the victims completed the schedule of follow up visits.Conclusion: Rape remains the commonest reason for presentation at our centre for PEP. Most victims still present late and are nearly always lost to follow-up after the initiation of PEP.Keywords: HIV, Rape, Post exposure prophylaxis, Criminal code

Five-years retrospective study on utilization and uptake pattern of family planning services in primary health centres in a peri-urban settlement in southwest Nigeria

Background: Family planning is one of the most basic and essential healthcare services that can promote and ensure women's reproductive health worldwide. However, there has been a low level of utilisation of family planning services by women in developing countries. Therefore, the paper documented the utilisation rate, the uptake pattern of family planning services, and the socio-demographic characteristics of the women who attended the selected primary health centres in the Ife-Central local government area. Method: A five-year retrospective review of primary health centre’s records of clients who attended selected health centres from January 2017-December 2021. Data was obtained from the client cards and the family planning record book. A total of 2572 clients’ records were evaluated. Results: the study revealed the modal age group of 25-34 (58%) and modal parity of 3-4 (51%) children. The most significant proportion of the women was married (94.6%), with a secondary level of education (89%). Injectables were the most utilized family planning services among women in primary health centres, followed by the uptake of condoms. The Implant was the only increasing uptake pattern of family planning services within 5 years in primary health centres. Conclusion: Injectable contraceptives have a higher utilization rate, and the uptake pattern of family planning services varied in selected PHCs. However, the uptake pattern of implants increased consistently. Therefore, there is a need for continuous awareness creation and advocacy for the uptake of family planning services to promote women’s health and well-being. Trial registration: It was not retrospectively registered

Improving the Feature Stability and Classification Performance of Bimodal Brain and Heart Biometrics

Electrical activities from brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) and heart (electrocardiogram, ECG) have been proposed as biometric modalities but the combined use of these signals appear not to have been studied thoroughly. Also, the feature stability of these signals has been a limiting factor for biometric usage. This paper presents results from a pilot study that reveal the combined use of brain and heart modalities provide improved classification performance and further-more, an improvement in the stability of the features over time through the use of binaural brain entrainment. The classification rate was increased, for the case of the neural network classifier from 92.4% to 95.1% and for the case of LDA, from 98.6% to 99.8%. The average standard deviation with binaural brain entrainment using all the inter-session features (from all the subjects) was 1.09, as compared to 1.26 without entrainment. This result suggests the improved stability of both the EEG and ECG features over time and hence resulting in higher classification performance. Overall, the results indicate that combining ECG and EEG gives improved classification performance and that through the use of binaural brain entrainment, both the ECG and EEG features are more stable over time

Individual identification via electrocardiogram analysis

Background: During last decade the use of ECG recordings in biometric recognition studies has increased. ECG characteristics made it suitable for subject identification: it is unique, present in all living individuals, and hard to forge. However, in spite of the great number of approaches found in literature, no agreement exists on the most appropriate methodology. This study aimed at providing a survey of the techniques used so far in ECG-based human identification. Specifically, a pattern recognition perspective is here proposed providing a unifying framework to appreciate previous studies and, hopefully, guide future research. Methods: We searched for papers on the subject from the earliest available date using relevant electronic databases (Medline, IEEEXplore, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge). The following terms were used in different combinations: electrocardiogram, ECG, human identification, biometric, authentication and individual variability. The electronic sources were last searched on 1st March 2015. In our selection we included published research on peer-reviewed journals, books chapters and conferences proceedings. The search was performed for English language documents. Results: 100 pertinent papers were found. Number of subjects involved in the journal studies ranges from 10 to 502, age from 16 to 86, male and female subjects are generally present. Number of analysed leads varies as well as the recording conditions. Identification performance differs widely as well as verification rate. Many studies refer to publicly available databases (Physionet ECG databases repository) while others rely on proprietary recordings making difficult them to compare. As a measure of overall accuracy we computed a weighted average of the identification rate and equal error rate in authentication scenarios. Identification rate resulted equal to 94.95 % while the equal error rate equal to 0.92 %. Conclusions: Biometric recognition is a mature field of research. Nevertheless, the use of physiological signals features, such as the ECG traits, needs further improvements. ECG features have the potential to be used in daily activities such as access control and patient handling as well as in wearable electronics applications. However, some barriers still limit its growth. Further analysis should be addressed on the use of single lead recordings and the study of features which are not dependent on the recording sites (e.g. fingers, hand palms). Moreover, it is expected that new techniques will be developed using fiducials and non-fiducial based features in order to catch the best of both approaches. ECG recognition in pathological subjects is also worth of additional investigations

Advanced Biometric Technologies: Emerging Scenarios and Research Trends

Biometric systems are the ensemble of devices, procedures, and algorithms for the automatic recognition of individuals by means of their physiological or behavioral characteristics. Although biometric systems are traditionally used in high-security applications, recent advancements are enabling the application of these systems in less-constrained conditions with non-ideal samples and with real-time performance. Consequently, biometric technologies are being increasingly used in a wide variety of emerging application scenarios, including public infrastructures, e-government, humanitarian services, and user-centric applications. This chapter introduces recent biometric technologies, reviews emerging scenarios for biometric recognition, and discusses research trends

Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia: A Case Report in a Seven Year Old Nigerian Child

Hypohidroitic ectodermal dysplasia is a rare genetic disorder that causes defect in the development of two or more tissues derived from embryonic ectoderm. There is no cure for the disease at present but affected individuals can live a normal life span if the disease is detected early and appropriate supportive treatment instituted. We report a rare case of hypohidroitic ectodermal dysplasia in a 7- year old Nigerian boy as well as highlight challenges in the management of this rare genetic disorder in a resourceconstrained setting

Reasons for Seeking Post Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV in A Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic in Owerri, Nigeria

Post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for Human immunodeficiency virus(HIV) includes amongst others drug intervention to help prevent  infection in a person exposed to the risk of infection. Where indicated PEP should be started  within 72 hours and adherence to a full 28-day course of antiretrovirals is critical to the effectiveness of the intervention. This study  sought to identify the reason(s)  on account of which  patients  presented at the  Paediatric infectious diseases clinic of the Federal medical centre ,Owerri  for HIV  Post exposure prophylaxis. It involved the retrospective analysis of medical  records of  patients who presented for PEP for HIV  between January 2012 and June 2020.  A total of 190 patients presented during the study period for PEP for HIV. Their  ages ranged  from 3 to 18years. Mean Age (Mean ± SD) = 12.23 ± 4. There were 178(92.7%)  females and 12(6.3%) males.  The major reason for seeking PEP by patients was on account of rape , others were human bite and needle prick. About a third of the patients  presented beyond  72 hours after the exposure occurred. There was a statistically significant association between age  of the patient   and  reason for seeking PEP (p = 0.01)  but the relationship between the reason for  seeking PEP  and interval between time of exposure and time of presentation was not statistically significant. (p = 0.394). The major reason for seeking HIV Post exposure prophylaxis  in the  clinic was rape  and a third of the patients presented to the clinic beyond  72 hours  after  exposure to the risk event